The Sanctuary of 17B

Chapter 3: A Tense Truce

Dimas yanked the door open with one hand, his knuckles white around the cold, improvised weapon. "Move! Now!"

Alina didn’t need to be told twice. She lunged across the threshold, her boots skidding on the linoleum floor. Dimas shoved the heavy door shut, slammed the deadbolt home, and slid the secondary security chain into its track with a sharp, metallic clack.

He kept the mop handle leveled at her chest, his eyes searching her face. Alina was heaving, her chest rising and falling in jagged, shallow gasps. She clutched the can of peaches to her chest like a holy relic, her knuckles white. She looked around the dimly lit living room, her eyes wide, darting from the shuttered windows to the unplugged PC monitor.

"You're in," Dimas breathed, his heart hammering against his ribs. "Is it locked? Is the seal holding?"

"Yes, yes, it's locked!" Alina gasped, finally dropping the can onto the floor. It made a heavy thud. She slumped against the door, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor. "Oh god. It’s quiet. It’s actually quiet in here."

Dimas didn't lower the pole. "You still have your knife? You said you dropped it."

Alina looked up, her expression a mix of terror and annoyance. "I told you, I dropped it outside. Check the hallway if you don't believe me. I didn't bring anything except these peaches and my own skin."

Dimas scanned her pockets, noting the frantic way she held her hands. "Fine. But stay there. Don't move toward the bedroom or the kitchen. Sit right there by the door."

"Are you serious? It’s a studio apartment, Dimas! There’s nowhere to go! You’re acting like I’m the one who’s infected."

"I don't know what you are," Dimas snapped, his voice tight. "I saw Mr. Hendra. He looked perfectly fine until he started talking. Then his brain just... emptied. How do I know you’re not just holding it together for five minutes before you forget your own name?"

Alina wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Her skin was pale, ghostly under the faint light filtering in from the street-level glow through the blinds. "I’m not. I can feel the headache, okay? It’s there, like a dull roar in the back of my skull. But I remember. I remember my mom's voice, I remember the smell of my art supplies, I remember that you owe me a favor for breaking my internet router last month when you were trying to install that custom mod."

Dimas blinked, his grip on the pole faltering slightly. "That was one time."

"It was three times, and you know it." She let out a dry, shaky laugh. "See? I’m still here. I’m still me."

Dimas finally lowered the mop handle, though he didn't let go of it. He stepped back, putting a few feet of distance between them. The silence of the apartment felt thick, pressing against his eardrums. "Okay. You’re you. For now."

"What about you?" Alina asked, her gaze sharpening. "Are you still tracking? Do you remember the game we were playing before the internet tanked?"

"Valorant. Competitive. We were one round away from ranking up," Dimas muttered, dropping onto his sofa. He kept his eyes on her. "I remember the score. 12-10. I remember the frustration. I remember... everything."

"Good," she whispered, her eyes drifting to the window. "Because the moment you stop remembering, that’s when the fog wins. I saw people in the lobby, Dimas. Neighbors I’ve seen for months. They were walking around in circles, just touching the walls. I asked the lady from 2A if she was okay, and she looked at me with those milky, empty eyes and asked me if I knew where the nearest bus stop was. She didn't even know she was in an apartment complex. She was trying to leave to go to a job she retired from ten years ago."

Dimas felt a shiver trace his spine. "They lose the present. They just revert to some baseline, some old memory, and then... they just stop being anyone at all."

"Exactly," Alina said, her voice dropping. "It’s like the fog eats the recent stuff first. The things that make us us. If we stay in here, if we keep talking, maybe we can anchor ourselves."

Dimas looked at the pantry. He had enough food for a month, but that was just him. "You brought those peaches?"

"Yeah. It’s not much, but it’s sugar. You need energy if you’re going to stay alert." She pushed the can across the floor toward him. "We pool the resources. I saw you counting those noodle packs. That’s not going to last two people for a month."

"It'll have to," Dimas said, his tone softening just a fraction. He stood up and walked to the kitchen, carefully keeping his eyes on Alina the whole time. He grabbed a manual can opener from the drawer and brought it to her. "You want some? You haven't eaten, right?"

"Not since the morning," she admitted, her hands trembling as she took the opener. "My head feels like it's being squeezed in a vice, but... I’m hungry. It’s a weird, hollow hunger."

"Eat," he commanded, sitting back on his heels. "We stay together. We talk. If one of us starts forgetting, the other one corrects them. We keep the chain intact."

"You're surprisingly organized for a guy who lives on instant noodles and rage-quits shooters," Alina noted, though there was no malice in her voice. She popped the lid of the can. The sweet smell of syrup filled the small, stale air of the room.

"I'm a perfectionist," Dimas replied, leaning against the kitchen counter. "I don't lose. Not in games, and I’m definitely not losing to whatever the hell is out there."

Alina took a bite of a peach, closing her eyes. "It’s not just a disaster, Dimas. It’s... it’s a systematic erasure. Did you see those things? The tall ones?"

"I saw them. They aren't human. They were moving through the fog like it was water."

"They were looking for something," she whispered. "When I was in the stairwell, I didn't just hear scraping. I heard a voice. It sounded like a recording, like someone playing a tape of me talking. It was calling my name, but the pitch was all wrong. It was using my voice to lure me out."

Dimas felt his blood run cold. "You didn't answer, did you?"

"I'm not an idiot. I climbed as fast as I could." She looked at the front door, her expression suddenly morphing into pure, unadulterated fear. "But I think... I think it followed me up."

"What makes you say that?" Dimas’s hand tightened on the mop handle again.

"The air," she said, her voice barely a breath. "The smell of copper. It’s getting stronger in here, isn't it? Even with the door locked."

Dimas sniffed the air. She was right. The scent of ozone and pennies—the smell of a nosebleed, or a fresh wound—was becoming heavy, cloying, like a metallic blanket settling over the furniture.

"Maybe it’s just the ventilation," Dimas said, trying to force a logic that felt increasingly flimsy. "The building has a central system. Maybe the air is being pushed through the ducts."

"The power is out, Dimas," Alina reminded him softly. "The fans aren't turning."

They both went silent, the apartment suddenly feeling like a small, fragile bubble suspended in a vast, grey void. Dimas listened, really listened, past the sound of his own breathing and the frantic pulse in his temples.

At first, there was only the hum of silence. Then, a slow, rhythmic scrape.

It started from the floorboards of the hallway. It was rhythmic, heavy, like a limb with far too many joints dragging itself across the concrete. Scrape. Drag. Scrape. Drag.

It moved past his door, slow and deliberate. Then, it stopped.

Dimas stood up, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged bird. He signaled for Alina to be quiet, his finger pressed to his lips. She nodded, her face drained of all color, the can of peaches forgotten on the floor.

Outside, in the pitch-black corridor, something massive shifted its weight. The wood of the door groaned under an unseen pressure. Then, a sound that defied every law of biology echoed through the heavy, reinforced oak.

It was a voice. His voice.

"Dimas," the thing hissed from the hallway. It was his exact tone, his exact inflection, but it lacked the messy, human vibration of a vocal cord. It sounded like glass grinding against glass. "Are you still playing? The match... is about to start."

Dimas stared at the door, his throat closing up. Beside him, Alina’s eyes were wide, her hands clawing at her own hair, her mouth hanging open in a silent, jagged scream.

The screech that followed tore through the door, a high-pitched, inhuman wail that sounded like a thousand sirens collapsing into one. It vibrated the very walls of the unit, sending a cascade of dust from the ceiling onto the floor.

"What is that?" Alina whispered, her voice barely audible over the ringing in their ears.

Dimas didn't answer. He just tightened his grip on the mop handle and stared at the door, watching as the wood began to warp, inward, under a force that should have been impossible.